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Wednesday, 20 March 2013

Hotel Chocolat's Cow Beastie Egg - A review

I don't often do reviews on the blog (despite being offered many a thing) but when Hotel Chocolat offered me an Easter Egg I had to say yes. By a review I mean that I received the Easter Egg free of charge in exchange for this post expressing my honest opinion.

I have known Hotel Chocolat ever since it was Chocolate Express in the late 90s. I joined their Chocolate Tasting Club in the early 2000s back in the day when I lived on my own and there was a whole drawer in my kitchen dedicated solely to chocolate. But I cancelled my membership last year (I think it was last year), I can't remember exactly why but I think I was generally pissed off at deliveries and payments.

Ever since I've known Mr Tapas our Easter eggs have been Hotel Chocolat's but then a couple of years ago we noticed a drop in quality and started buying them at the end of Easter/after Easter when they were half price, so I had an ulterior motive for accepting the egg: will I myself want to buy an Easter egg from Hotel Chocolat this year?

I received a Cow Beastie Egg, which retails at £15. I received it in the post and it arrived intact. First impressions once I opened the outer box were: is this all you get for £15? I knew they were expensive compared to other chocolate Easter eggs but I didn't remember them being that expensive.

I put it away in a cupboard and a few days later I let the family dig in, my husband was very excited to be able to eat Easter Egg BEFORE Easter and it got a wow from LittleT who hadn't yet seen it.

It includes one biggish hollow milk chocolate egg and six smaller eggs (three are salted caramel and three are praline).

Taste: there is no denying that it is good chocolate (I especially loved the salted caramel eggs).

Texture: smooth and moreish. I think husband would have liked the shell of the large egg to be thicker but I ate it quite happily. LittleT had no complaints of any type.

Serving suggestion

Price: after trying it I would say it is slightly overpriced and, if I was buying it for myself or for us as a family, I would have probably bought a different egg from the range.

All in all, a rather pleasant chocolatey experience.

For those of you with allergies, it contains milk and nuts (no surprise there given that it is a milk chocolate set with praline), it also contains soya.

You can buy Hotel Chocolat's wares online or in their shops dotted around the country. The one the Tapas household visits most often is the Cambridge one.